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Thursday, September 8, 2011

Art Nouveaux Case Mod Completed

Lighting Effects and Wrap UpSpecial Lighting:When I used the bench light to illuminate the glass window from the inside of the case, I realized that just illuminated fans and other LED lighting were not going to show off the case to the best effect. To give a uniform white-light illumination on the system board side, a dual-lamp Cold Cathode Fluorescent kit was installed with one tube at the top and the second along the bottom edge. The CPU block and pump have blue LEDs and the two 120mm fans I have installed on the radiator and in the bottom of the case are lit with green LEDs.

The second side panel and the glass panel in the front bezel get a custom LED treatment. The gap between the side panel and the sheet metal behind the motherboard is not wide enough for a fluorescent tube to fit (at least not while still in its protective plastic tube.) I saw a lighting kit called "The Chameleon" that consists of three potentiometers (variable resistors) that connect to four small multicolor LEDs. The red, green and blue LED in the package each have a single connecting pin, with a common ground. By adjusting the red, green or blue knobs, you can achieve any color illumination you want. To this end, I assembled four LED light bars, each with three red, three green, three blue, and three white LEDs. (I added the white LEDs so I can dial up pure white illumination instead of the rainbow-tint white, and to get washed-out colors like pink, lavender or sky blue.) This many LEDs are going to draw much more current then the four in the Chameleon kit, and rather than build four adjustable voltage circuits, I used a Sunbeam Tech Rheobus fan controller. Each of the LED color clusters on a single bar is connected in series with a 240 ohm resistor to limit the current, and I alternated the colors across the bar to diffuse the light more (red, green, blue, white, red...). Wires from each color group are connected together and then attached to a single output of the fan controller. (I replaced the dual-color LEDs in the fan controller with a single-color red, green, blue, or white LED to indicate the color you are adjusting.) Three of the light bars are placed around the edge of the case behind the second side window and the fourth light bar is behind the front bezel.

There is no lighting in or behind the Thermaltake water reservoir. This makes it difficult to view the fluid level, so I created one more LED bar that connects directly to a 12v Molex disk drive connection. This bar has 12 ultraviolet LEDs that are directed at the rear of the plastic fluid reservoir and create a bright green glow.

[caption id="attachment_501" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Three LEDs connected in series for connection to a 12v DC source (or in this case, a 0-12v adjustable fan controller.)"][/caption]